Cerebus the Aardvark is done and dusted. In his place comes another extraordinary fictional creation: Sir Harry Flashman hero of the British Empire and all round scoundrel. Join me as I go through the Flashman Papers one damn chapter at a time. Books will also be reviewed and there will be the occasional rant.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Greatness Among Flies

When we last saw Cerebus (I really should make an effort to do at least one chapter a week) he was in the clutches of the mad artists Swamp-Thing/Man-Thing hybrid.

The problem with this is that the monster is the size of a small building and could quite easily crush our hero. The first part of this chapter has the artist preaching to Cerebus about his greatness and fitness for godhood, he's developed quite a case of craziness there. That forms the major part of each panel, there's a smaller bottom series of panels which are closeups of Cerebus' face as he's manhandled. It's almost like there are 2 books going on at once.

Once the artist thinks he's convinced Cerebus to jump off the tower the perspective switches from having Cerebus face/head at the top and the artist and his creation at the bottom. Cerebus does not in fact jump to his death, he lands on a secondary level of the tower.

When the artist and his 'thing' lift the giant sphere the top of the tower breaks off and falls back to earth, while Cerebus clings to his bit of the tower which is now the top as it continues it's ascent to the moon.

Quite a bizarre chapter as many of the space and moon ones are. Cerebus does not say a word throughout the entire thing. His story is entirely told in his expressions. This is is the end of book 6.